Standard Chartered Bank Finally Integrates With EcoCash

Personally I use Standard Chartered Bank, unexpectedly seeing the notification coming through my phone on Thursday that the bank was going to automatically link my mobile number on its digital platform with EcoCash, while sleeping seemed so surreal that I had to be fully awake the next day to believe (doubting Thomas) but do you blame me? Obviously, no. StanChat users are now able to link their bank account to their EcoCash account.

Until recently the wallets which could link with StanChart was OneMoney and Telecash which is quite surprising considering the fact that EcoCash is used by way more people than OneMoney and Telecash respectively. Anyway, StanChart is now fixing that. StanChart customers can now link their bank account to their mobile money wallet.

Today marks the day that the linking of Ecocash accounts and Standard Chartered(StanChart) accounts is finally going live. Previously, it had been announced about such an arrangement but the platform wasn’t yet operational. Zimbabwe’s oldest financial institution and the largest mobile money transfer platform are teaming up to increase service provision to their respective customers. StanChart, like any other big institution had lagged to link its banking services with Ecocash.

This move now allows users who are banking with StanChart to transfer funds from their bank to their EcoCash wallet and vice-versa.

With this move, EcoCash is now linked to 11 banks. You would naturally think they have the most partnerships but Telecash is actually linked to more banks as it is currently partnered with 13 banks.

The cash crisis has made these partnerships much more important as people no longer have easy access to cash and have become more reliant on mobile money services to make purchases. The move will no doubt make it easier to deal with the cash shortages that have been pummeling the country over the past several months.

Some reasons StanChat was late to link with Ecocash?

Persistent cash shortages and the widespread use of mobile money services could have prompted StanChart to link with Ecocash. A lot of people are now using Ecocash relative to banking services of decorated banks like StanChart.

Banks like Stanchart were only left to process company accounts and transactions of huge sums, which are not frequently done compared to household accounts of Ecocash users.

The demise of many companies and the scaling down of operations by many companies in Zimbabwe consequently led to a reduction of companies use of banking services which were StanChart’s high value customers. In light of that, Ecocash accounting of over 95% of the mobile money services which are predominantly used by household customers proved to be a new source of value for StanChart to tap into regardless of the low value of individual transactions relative to company accounts transactions.

So increasing transaction value and quantity could be the reason StanChart has finally chosen to harmonize its banking services with Ecocash.